-TA's olive branch
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I A STRONG plea to drop any idea of introducing lorry bans across )ndon, Freight Transport Association director-general Hugh tatherstone has offered to help the Greater London Council solve rry problems. It will even consider helping to fund joint studies, rites ALAN MILLAR.
In a letter sent last week to LC transport committee chair ave Wetzel in time for the corn' ittee's meeting later this !oath to discuss possible bans, Ir Featherstone has warned 'at London-wide lorry bans ould be a great mistake, ffering little environmental ?nefit at unacceptable econoic and social cost.
He quoted the Wood Report the effects of lorry bans in London, which the GLC will use as the basis for any of its decisions on September 21, saying there would be little environmental gain overall from any ban.
But he has rounded on the Report's economic predictions, saying its claim that a 16.5-tonne weight limit within the M25 would save E12rn for industry is "fatuous".
"It flies in the face of the judgment of over 1,000 companies which gave evidence to the inquiry, and was rejected by the two industrial representatives on the Wood panel in a note of dissent."
Mr Featherstone has turned the recommendations of the Wood Report upside down, saying that if it is "properly interpreted and supplemented with the missing economic information" it represents a decisive case against lorry bans.
He has, however, thrown an olive branch to the GLC by say ing the FTA recognises that there are specific problems caused by lorries in sensitive areas like Earl's Court and Archway Road, and that it is willing to help the GLC solve these problems.
"The quest should be for specific solutions to these very specific problems," he told Mr Wetzel, and urged that a "major initiative" be carried out to achieve that end. "We would welcome the opportunity of working with the GLC on joint studies to see what can be done."
Mr Featherstone is on holiday this week, but an ETA spokesman explained that the association believes that a combination of new road construction, traffic management schemes (with perhaps some area bans), and grants for home and factory insulation would solve the "undeniable" problems which exist in these areas.
I-le added that the FTA would be prepared to consider spending money with the GLC on specific projects to investigate the true nature of problems and their solutions, if it thought these would help.
The ETA, and the London Needs Lorries pan-industry pressure group which it has been co-ordinating, are laying particular emphasis on the danger of jobs being lost as a result of lorry bans, believing that this will cut most ice with the Labour-controlled GLC.